Sapna Book Store (SapnaOnline.Com) is a well known chain of book stores. Excellent source of books, especially Kannada books.
I had ordered a few books online recently.
After a couple of days, I got an e-mail from them informing me that the price of one of the books has come down and they were issuing a coupon for the difference. It was a coupon for Rs. 25.
Certainly very refreshing. Very rarely businesses offer such a gesture. Thank you Sapna Online.
I would have liked the difference directly refunded to my bank account. If that was not possible, the coupon should have been open ended without any expiration date. In this case, the coupon had to be used by May 31st.
In order to use the coupon, I ended up ordering another Rs. 250 worth of books. Wanted to get free shipping also. So, minimum had to be more than Rs. 199. :)
Behavioral finance at work here. It's hard to give up when something is 'free'. To make use of Rs. 25 coupon, spend another Rs. 225. :) No wonder economist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel prize researching such irrational consumer behaviors when it comes to money.
To tell you the truth, I was not a big fan of Sapna earlier. During 1994-97, I had visited their Bangalore store (near Majestic) a couple of times. There used to be a few annoying employees who went around saying 'No reading. No reading.' They were there to dissuade people from reading (scanning/browsing) books there. Attitude was like - don't browse the books. Just buy and leave. Most irritating behavior. They should come and see how book stores operate in the USA. You can take any new book from the shelf, read as long as you want lounging on comfortable furniture, once your are done, leave the books right there and leave without buying anything. Nobody to bother you or buzz in your ears 'no reading. no reading'.
By this gesture, that old resentment about Sapna is gone, partially at least :)
Online shopping experience is excellent. Well designed online portal.
I had ordered a few books online recently.
After a couple of days, I got an e-mail from them informing me that the price of one of the books has come down and they were issuing a coupon for the difference. It was a coupon for Rs. 25.
Certainly very refreshing. Very rarely businesses offer such a gesture. Thank you Sapna Online.
I would have liked the difference directly refunded to my bank account. If that was not possible, the coupon should have been open ended without any expiration date. In this case, the coupon had to be used by May 31st.
In order to use the coupon, I ended up ordering another Rs. 250 worth of books. Wanted to get free shipping also. So, minimum had to be more than Rs. 199. :)
Behavioral finance at work here. It's hard to give up when something is 'free'. To make use of Rs. 25 coupon, spend another Rs. 225. :) No wonder economist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel prize researching such irrational consumer behaviors when it comes to money.
To tell you the truth, I was not a big fan of Sapna earlier. During 1994-97, I had visited their Bangalore store (near Majestic) a couple of times. There used to be a few annoying employees who went around saying 'No reading. No reading.' They were there to dissuade people from reading (scanning/browsing) books there. Attitude was like - don't browse the books. Just buy and leave. Most irritating behavior. They should come and see how book stores operate in the USA. You can take any new book from the shelf, read as long as you want lounging on comfortable furniture, once your are done, leave the books right there and leave without buying anything. Nobody to bother you or buzz in your ears 'no reading. no reading'.
By this gesture, that old resentment about Sapna is gone, partially at least :)
Online shopping experience is excellent. Well designed online portal.
1 comment:
Sapna book house is a large book house. It is good that they are selling online. Those who cannot go to Bengaluru for certain books can now get the books online. But this `coupon business' is definitely `back-stabbing'! Also, the `don't read here' is very irritating. The Indian merchant is not sensitive or consumer-friendly.
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